34
I sat on the carpeted floor, cradling my Game Boy, my head resting on my mother’s knee as she and her friends huddled around the television to watch the seven p.m. headlines on ZBC news.
‘Morgan Tsvangirai has been released from prison after allegedly being seized on his way to attend a prayer meeting at church. Claims that Tsvangirai was a victim of police brutality, along with other MDC officials, are yet to be confirmed. Police claim that the confrontation was, in fact, instigated by the MDC activists themselves.’
A picture flashed on screen, and in less than a second my mother’s hands moved over my eyelids to block the image. But I peeked through the outlines of her pressed fingers and saw a man, lying on a hospital bed. His eyes were red where there should have been white, and his face was black and bulging.
I can still see that picture today, if I close my eyes. In fact, everything my mother has told me not to see, or to forget I heard, I remember with more clarity than anything else. When she ordered me to look away as a group of young boys stripped off their clothes and ran naked into Lake Mazowe doing bomb-dives. When she said ‘fuck’ during a telephone call to her lawyer. Or when a woman approached the window of our parked car with a baby in her arms whose eyes were open but unmoving.
The discussion in the living room following the report was loud and heated.
Mum looked over at me and said, ‘Hannah, this is probably a grown-up conversation, one that young ears shouldn’t be listening to.’
I glanced up at her and made a ‘hmm’ noise as though I had just registered that she was addressing me, and hadn’t, in fact, been listening intently the whole time. I wasn’t sure my feigned disinterest was convincing, but she must have been so eager to get back to the rumour she was repeating that it didn’t matter.
‘They’re claiming there was an assassination plot against Mugabe, and that’s why he was taken.’
‘Bullshit!’ said John.
I sensed Mum glance my way but kept my eyes fixed on the toy in my hands, continuing to mash the A and B control buttons even though I was on the GAME OVER screen.
‘Of course they would make up some rubbish, anything to lock him up and kick him around. There wouldn’t be an ounce of truth to it,’ John continued.
‘But what if – I mean, it’s not inconceivable,’ Mum said, leaning forwards as though the room had been bugged. ‘And it’s not as though Tsvangirai is the only person out there who’d like to see Mugabe dead.’
‘Well, if anyone does ever put a hit out, I’m more than happy to do the deed,’ Stella chimed in, making a bow-and-arrow gesture with her hands.
The group chuckled, and the intensity in the room parachuted down to a more manageable level, eventually landing on some warm silence.
‘Would anyone like a cup of tea?’ Mum said.
There were a few murmurs around the room, in favour of the idea.
‘Ruth,’ Mum called out, and Gogo emerged from the kitchen, holding a saucepan and a checked tea towel. ‘Would you mind making a pot of tea for us, please? Thank you.’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘So where are your folks now, Jane?’ Zayn asked.
‘Western Australia, some town called Dalwallinu,’ she replied. ‘They knew some people who could help them get set up. My aunt is there too.’
‘When are you going to head over?’
‘Well, that depends … we’re trying for as soon as possible, but who knows.’
‘Oh boy, there won’t be any reason to stay in Zim if Jane Reynolds isn’t around,’ Zayn said.
‘Please, I’m sure you’ll manage.’
The start of the next news story interrupted the conversation.
‘… Jonathan Mbofi, Minister of Environment, faces pressure from within the ZANU-PF party to resign …’
‘And are you going to go after similar work in—’ Zayn began to ask my mother.
‘Wait, hold on,’ Mum said, her eyes fixed on the television.
‘… amid allegations of his involvement in the illegal exportation of ivory. January Tembo has more.’ The TV cut to a fresh-faced reporter in the field, standing in what looked like a national game park.
Mum apologised to Zayn for her curtness, expressing her interest in the upcoming report.
‘Minister Mbofi, only fourteen months into his new role as Minister of Environment, is already hearing calls from ZANU-PF members to resign. The pressure comes amid growing concerns regarding the abuse of power in his new position, and potential involvement in the ivory trade. The Honourable Mike Hungwe, representing Matabeleland South, has spoken out against Mbofi in a damning ZBC exclusive phone call.’
The reporter was replaced by a static shot of Mike Hungwe and transcribed text of the phone conversation, where he recounted the mounting evidence against Mbofi and, once again, repeated a call for him to step down. Then they featured an audio clip of Mbofi’s response and his governmental headshot replaced the previous one. I took in a sharp breath – it was the man I’d seen at Dad’s but I’d forgotten his name.
‘That Hungwe chap must be vying for the environment position himself, what do you reckon?’ Stella asked.
‘Could be. Could just be some old-fashioned Shona–Matabele resentment,’ John replied.
‘There’s not a chance he genuinely finds corruption reprehensible?’ Zayn asked.
‘The same man who used foreign aid to finance his new investment property in Bulawayo? I don’t think so.’
‘Change of ruler is the joy of fools,’ Stella said, in agreement with her husband.
When Gogo returned with the tea, she was roped into the conversation.
‘Ruth,’ Mum began. ‘Mr Mbofi. Do you know anything about him?’
‘He is ZANU,’ she replied, setting down the tea tray. ‘Has a very young wife.’
‘Anything else?’
Gogo shook her head.
‘Okay. Thank you, Ruth.’
Later on, once Zayn and John and Stella had left, Mum asked me the same question she’d asked Gogo. I told her I didn’t know anything more than that he worked with Dad and how I’d been rather upset the day he came by, as he took up most of Dad’s time during my visit.
35
The first time mum allowed me to go trick-or-treating was the October after our move to the estate. Diana had come round to my house for a sleepover and we were excited to finally participate in the festivities we’d seen displayed on our television screens a thousand times. We donned our parents’ graduation gowns and, just before dusk, set out onto the street.
Our much-anticipated venture was unsuccessful. Diana and I returned home with two oranges, a ten-thousand-dollar note, a Mars bar and a stick of chewing gum with a piece missing. I had never seen such an appalled expression than on the face of the woman two streets down when I tried to explain the Halloween tradition.
‘You want me to give you food?’ she asked, clearly taken aback that someone in Borrowdale Brooke would be asking a stranger for sustenance. ‘And you are witches?’
‘Well, I … I’m Harry, she’s Hermione,’ I said, re-adjusting my ‘cloak’.
After that encounter, we agreed to cut our losses and see if we could convince my mum to buy us some lollies from the shops instead.
‘I still had fun,’ Diana said afterwards. I agreed. The real fun wasn’t finding treats: it was rehearsing rhymes together as we bounded down the street; it was the anticipation of doorknocking; and it was making ourselves believe that the old house on the corner with no-one home was actually haunted, then running away screaming when we heard a dog bark.
After eating dinner, and a sickening amount of sweets that Mum ended up purchasing for us, both Diana and I slipped into our pyjamas and climbed into my bed. With all the sugar in our systems, it seemed likely we’d be up talking for hours.
Around nine-thirty Mum
came into the room to say goodnight, giving each of us a quick hug.
‘Night, Mum, love you.’
‘Goodnight, Jane.’
‘Night-night, girls,’ Mum said, lingering a moment before checking the locks on the window for a second time. ‘Okay. Night. Also, remember, I’ve set the alarm for the rest of the house – so come grab me first if you need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night or need a glass of water or something.’
‘Oh, but I don’t want to wake you up,’ Diana said.
Mum assured her it wouldn’t be a problem. I knew it wouldn’t, because Mum wouldn’t be sleeping anyway.
Before dropping Diana home the next day, Mum made a detour past the University of Zimbabwe.
‘I just need to run in to see Learnmore,’ she said, as she parked. ‘Gogo’s son,’ she added for Diana’s sake. ‘He’s about to take his first-semester exams. I said I’d give him some of my old accounting and finance textbooks. You girls can come with me or stay in the car.’
We decided to walk with her to Learnmore’s building but opted to wait on the grass near the entrance while she went to find him inside. As we sat there, gazing across at classrooms and lecture theatres, we commenced planning our adult lives once more.
‘We have to go to the same uni,’ I said, even though it was a given. ‘And maybe we can share a house together. We can have parties. And we can stay up late. And we’ll both have boyfriends who we meet on our courses.’
‘Won’t you be going to university in Australia?’ Diana asked.
I felt something hit me and then sink in. I told her I hadn’t considered that; when I daydreamt about my future, it was always in Africa. I’d never left the continent before. In fact, I’d only ever left Zim to travel to neighbouring South Africa and Mozambique.
‘I guess I assumed I’d end up coming back one day.’
‘Do you even want to go to Australia?’
‘I don’t know. I think so,’ I said.
‘Well, I don’t want you to go,’ she said. Then, after a brief pause: ‘Do you think you’ll miss your dad?’
‘Would you miss yours?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, me too.’
‘It’s just … it seems like he kind of treats you like, well … Silly Hairy Impala Toes.’
Her comment took me by surprise. I thought about what he would have said about Halloween had we spent it at his house: that I didn’t need the extra food and I was much too old to be playing dress-ups and going doorknocking. And he would’ve preferred I was having playdates with Michaela Parker instead of Diana Chigumba.
‘I dunno. He’s still my dad.’
We moved from sitting to lying down on our fronts, watching students walk past; we whispered made-up conversations to match the movement of their lips, giggling to ourselves. As we lay there, I was reminded of how much of our years of friendship consisted of doing exactly what we were doing now: spending time on a patch of grass and just talking. From the quiet reading period at the start of the school day that we’d often deviate from, to mid-morning break, right up until the end of the day, as we waited for our parents to pick us up. I thought of the elaborate codenames we’d crafted for all our teachers, of the secret language we made up.
‘By the way,’ I started. ‘I’ve got something to tell you about Ms Pratt. It was meant to be a secret, but since I’m probably—’
‘Hold on … Can you smell that?’ Diana asked.
The familiar putrid fumes of something burning travelled to my nostrils. We both sat upright and looked around. Fifty, sixty metres away, we spotted a small group of students clustered together. It seemed they’d set one of the bins on fire. Not long after, the chanting started.
‘DIS-GRACE. DIS-GRACE. DIS-GRACE.’
‘Should we try to find your mum?’
‘She told us to wait here.’
We looked at the scene unfolding in the distance, unsure of what to make of it. People began spilling out of classes and joining in. A twentysomething-year-old man climbed up onto a plastic chair. He lifted a megaphone to his lips, the crackling sound echoing through the growing crowd as he turned it on.
‘We have just been made aware that our university is considering awarding GRACE MUGABE … with an honorary degree …’
A vicious round of boos forced him to pause.
‘We will stand up to this injustice. We will not condone this. Our degree means nothing – it is absolutely worthless – if she is given one too … Dhiabhorosi.’
The crowd roared with applause.
‘We will not attend our lectures,’ the man continued, with increasing energy. ‘We will not sit our exams. We will not participate in this corrupt system until we are given an assurance that this favouritism … this political interference in our education will not occur.’
The crowd continued their chants of DIS-GRACE.
Diana shot me a look, which I understood.
‘If we go,’ I said, ‘she won’t be able to find us.’ This was probably true, but the real reason behind my reluctance to leave was the rush of excitement I felt witnessing the spontaneous rally. I was curious to watch on, in awe of the young people who led such different lives from mine.
We continued to observe from a safe distance. In the space of twenty minutes, the initial group of ten or so had exploded to around a hundred, and the voices that had been chanting in English were now singing in Shona.
I had overheard a lot of discussions about Mugabe’s wife, forty-one years younger than the president but just as unscrupulous. Her penchant for designer clothing gave birth to the nickname ‘Gucci Grace’, and she’d often flit between Hong Kong, London and Paris, indulging in extravagant international shopping sprees. When I picture Grace Mugabe in my mind, it’s always the same memorable image: she’s dressed in a lime-green blazer, the custom-made print consisting of black-and-white pictures of her husband’s face, interspersed with yellow and red outlines of the country’s border; a black beret holds back a head of curls; and large, hooped earrings hang from her lobes. She is tight-lipped. Powerful.
All of a sudden, the sounds of the student protest were drowned out by a loud whirring from above. I looked up – a camouflage-coloured helicopter was flying towards the university.
Diana and I got to our feet, continuing to stare at the unfamiliar aircraft. I’d never seen a helicopter in the city before. What was going on? It was now hovering directly above the crowd. Four men emerged from either side, wielding black rifles, and before we understood what was happening, they opened fire.
Diana grabbed my hand and started to run to the safety of the building Mum had entered, pulling me with her. I tripped over a groove in the paving stones but managed to stay on my feet. We ducked into a nearby classroom and peered out through a window, as the group of students dispersed in all directions. Several had collapsed to the ground, clutching at their wounds. Diana and I moved out of the room, further into the building, against the sea of people rushing towards the commotion they’d heard.
We caught sight of Mum and Learnmore further down the corridor. Mum ran over, grabbing us both into her arms and inspecting us to make sure we were okay.
The noise of the helicopter started to fade and was replaced with screams of pain.
‘They just … they just shot them,’ I said. ‘They weren’t even hurting anyone and then they just came and fired at them.’
‘Should we ring for ambulances?’ Diana asked.
Mum got out her cell phone, but Learnmore stopped her from dialling.
‘No, no, no. The police use rubber bullets for these things. They’re not going to die. They’re just badly hurt.’
The guns and the shots and the way people keeled over or fell to their knees all felt so real, so devastating, that I almost couldn’t believe him.
‘Shouldn’t we call anyway
?’ Mum asked.
Learnmore shook his head. ‘They’ll see who shows up in hospital with “bullet” wounds and arrest them there. There’s nothing you can do. We have first aid here.’
Learnmore followed us out of the building, bidding us goodbye before leaving to assist with the carnage.
‘Your mum is never going to let you stay with us for a sleepover again,’ Mum tried to joke when we were back in the car.
For the entirety of the drive back to her house, Diana continued to hold my hand. I knew she was feeling the same way I was. The retrospective knowledge we’d obtained – that the bullets fired into the crowd were non-lethal – did little to assuage the pure horror that had arisen from the moment we thought we were witnessing a massacre.
36
It was during the last part of the year that I started to realise how serious the conflict had become between my parents. Summer was on its way, and heavy afternoon rains would pour as if from the sun, the tepid water hitting the grass and drawing out the fresh smell of the earth that lingered until the evening, long after the downpour had ceased.
My mother’s friends often visited to provide emotional support and talk about ‘the case’ and ‘Steve’. I started referring to Dad as ‘Steve’, but only when I was around them. I once called him ‘Steve’ to his face and he slammed his glass down onto the table with such force I was certain it would crack and spill its contents.
Mum and her friends would sit around the dining table, Gogo providing endless pots of tea and trays of biscuits, or cheese on crackers, as they volleyed ideas back and forth. The mood was often sombre, only ever lightening up when they turned to one particular funny topic, which wasn’t a proper joke, but rather something that made them laugh temporarily.
‘Your lawyer Wallace’s writing … it’s like an ant was dipped in ink and crawled across the page. How are we expected to read this?’ Another time it was: ‘God, look at his handwriting. Is it a prerequisite for doctors and lawyers to have unintelligible notes?’ And once Mum said: ‘I can barely read what he’s saying here, who knew the hardest part of going to court was going to be doing the reading?’ The last comment didn’t get much of a laugh but, rather, a round of defeated sighs.
Little Stones Page 19